Control and management of insects and other pests on domesticated animals has proven challenging, costly, often elusive, and frequently ineffective. Dealing with pests of the kind described in the U.S. patent application filed by the inventor named in this document, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/903,318 filed on Jul. 30, 2004, is an important objective for dairy herdsmen. Pests among dairy herds dramatically impact the economics of animal production and milk production, a commercial industry constituting a significant contribution to the gross national product of the United States. It is estimated that the dairy cattle industry, for example, is produces $38 billion annually. Failure to deal with pests causes a number of problems, including irritations to cows that are so severe that milk production suffers; disease pathogens are transmitted from cow to cow; and a variety of regulatory rules and regulations may be violated by failure to treat such pests. Exemplary solutions for solving problems arising from pests among dairy herds have been provided by the inventor named in this document as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,660 issued May 15, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 6,651,589 issued Nov. 25, 2003; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/844,316 filed Apr. 26, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 6,779,489 issued Aug. 24, 2004; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,194,980 B2, issued Mar. 27, 2007 (collectively, “Prior Applications and Patents”).
In addition to the problems solved by the Prior Applications and Patents, a wide range of diseases, infections and injuries to the feet and other anatomical regions of animals and mammals, including cattle that are part of dairy herds. In addition to treating diseases, infections and injuries on the feet of dairy cows, for example, it is useful to apply various ingredients for preventative treatment to achieve resistance to diseases and lacerations, to harden hooves to resist physical injury, and to achieve similar and related objectives. Livestock in a dairy herd, for example, are susceptible to forming a variety of warts, abscesses, sole ulcers, foot rot, heel cracks and variations of lesions and infections on their feet and/or hooves, which may individually or collectively cause livestock to suffer lameness, clubbed hooves, loss of body weight, decreased milk production, and decreased rates of conception. In this document the term “animal treatment problems” includes at least such problems, but is not limited in any way.
An exemplary solution to such problems is presented in the co-pending U.S. patent application by the same inventor of the animal treatment system disclosed, illustrated and claimed in this document, namely application Ser. No. 11/458,935 for an ANIMAL FOOT TREATMENT SYSTEM filed Jul. 20, 2006, U.S. Publication No. US/2008/0121189 A1, published on May 29, 2008 (“Parent Application”).
While the system, apparatus and methods disclosed, illustrated and claimed in the Parent Application have proven useful for the intended purposes and applications described in that document and drawing figures, additional contributions to the art disclosed, illustrated and claimed in this document provide other optimizations and embodiments in which the principles of operation, with different configurations, result in additional features and uses, and consequently additional advantages, of the animal treatment system disclosed, illustrated, and claimed in this document. As will become evident, none of the currently available suggestions for addressing animal treatment problems is as effective as that disclosed in this document.
Indeed, alternative apparatus and methods suggested as solutions for application of ingredients to animals are potentially hazardous both to humans and to animals. For example, a common way to apply topical solutions to hooves of animals is a form of a bath, footbath, tub, or container (in this document, a “bath”) through which an animal walks. Concentrations of ingredients in baths used to chemically treat animal foot problems are often rendered ineffective because of debris deposited in the ingredients in the form of animal waste by livestock passing through the bath. Accordingly, and to insure continued efficacy of a bath, baths need to be regularly cleaned and refilled with fresh ingredients. Unfortunately, the cleaning and refilling of baths is generally a manual chore often ignored. After a short period of time, this results in an inefficacious bath. Therefore, until development of the system shown in this document, applying and maintaining precise concentrations of ingredients has proven problematic.
In addition, bath application methods are comparatively expensive and inefficient. Excessive quantities of expensive chemicals and chemical combinations are used in connection with a bath in an effort to achieve appropriate coverage and treatment. As debris is deposited in the bath, the debris acts to reduce the efficacy of the foot bath solution. That is, as more animals pass through the bath more debris is deposited in the bath and, as the strength of the bath continually degrades, a point is reached where the bath contents are no longer efficacious. Therefore, to compensate for this effect, the chemical concentration in the bath must be provided at a strength sufficient to insure that the contents of the bath will still be efficacious when the last animal traverses the bath. Thus, the concentration of the solution in the bath must be much stronger than required for the first animal passing through bath to be effective for the last animal passing through the bath because of the degrading effect of continuous debris deposition.
Baths in which animals place their feet may also cause pollution and injury to animals and to humans. For example, copper sulfate is commonly used in treating cows. Discharge of copper sulfate from bath treatment systems into adjacent lands may cause significant damage to crop lands. Another chemical used extensively in the dairy industry is formaldehyde. Numerous burns to humans and animals result annually from use of formaldehyde; loss of eyesight and even death among workers have occurred. For these reasons the European Union has called for a ban of its use, a decision made more compelling after formaldehyde was listed as a known carcinogen in the United States. Formaldehyde in comparatively large concentrations in a bath application system may damage feet of cattle. Use of the animal treatment system disclosed in this document eliminates those problems and other problems associated with contamination, pollution and injury caused by excessive concentrations of one or more chemicals in a footbath system, and at the same time decreases the costs of effective applications of ingredients.
For example, studies show that the animal treatment system disclosed in this document may reduce the quantities of expensive chemicals from over 20 ounces per application per animal to approximately 4 ounces per application per animal, resulting in a significant reduction in the use of costly chemicals, and in a significant reduction in potential pollution and accompanying costs.
As indicated, the animal treatment system disclosed in this document is capable of selective discharge and application. A consequence of selective targeting of expensive chemicals reduces the overall costs of contending with animal treatment problems. The animal treatment system of this document, therefore, provides flexibility by allowing use of precise ingredients to treat a precise problem.
One example among many is the treatment of digital dermatitis, also known in the dairy industry as hairy heel warts. Digital dermatitis generally occurs on the back of a cow's rear feet over 90% of the time, but it is known also to occur between the cow's toes and/or claws and on front feet as well. Because the animal treatment system disclosed in this document can selectively target specific anatomical regions of a cow for treatment, studies have shown that chemical usage as a result of the animal treatment system can be reduced by 70-90%. For treating digital dermatitis, the animal treatment system of this document appears to be at least four times more efficient to use, from a cost perspective, than any other known footbath or bath treatment system.
Yet another advantage of the animal treatment system of this document is treatment of varying conditions of an anatomical region during varying cycles of an animal. In a dairy herd environment, the hooves of cows change solidity in direct relationship to the lactation cycle of the cow. The term “lactation cycle” refers to the period during which milk is produced by mammary glands of a cow. A cow entering commencement of a lactation cycle may not have its feet treated for the 2-4 month period, known as the dry period, before calving when she was not being milked and therefore was not passing through the footbath. During that period, a cow's foot may become softer than it was during the lactation cycle when routinely passing through a bath. Softness may later result in development of significant abscesses, ulcers, or erosions that will ultimately have to be treated. Additionally, because cows typically are not exposed to baths during the dry period, certain foot lesions or diseases become more pronounced. Use of the animal treatment system disclosed in this document allows changes in chemical compositions of applications of ingredients to reflect such varying problems unique to the dairy industry, among others.
It is apparent, then, that a need exists in the industry for a new and useful system for treating animal feet and/or hooves that is capable of applying precise amounts of ingredients at precise times during precise lengths of time on such selected anatomical regions of animals to achieve a cost-effective and treatment-effective application of ingredients to overcome animal treatment problems.